FIP Evening The Odds

ERICK STEVENS vs. PELLE PRIMEAU - 3.75/10

This was your basic small underdog babyface vs. big scary heel match.

SETH DELAY vs. DEREK DEMPSEY - 4/10

SOCAL VAL & HEARTBREAK EXPRESS PROMO - There is a theory that all you need to do to get heat on an annoying heel is put them with an attractive member of the opposite sex. There have never been any heels more annoying than the Heartbreak Express... and putting SoCal Val with them has managed to make me hate them even more. The ironic part of this is that Val herself would eventually grow up to become the female version of this same type of extremely annoying heel. And I do mean "grow up" because she is only NINETEEN here... and the fact that she is already so good at her character is INSANE. How THE F*CK did TNA have her on their roster and do absolutely nothing with her for the vast majority of her almost decade-long run with them?

Anyway, the heels brag about not having to defend their titles tonight because they defended them successfully last night and they are only required to defend them once a month. They also complained about Davey Andrews spanking Val at last night's show. Val says that her lawyer told her that this constituted sexual harassment... and that is completely correct. Some babyface this Davey Andrews is.

The Heartbreak Express call Andrews out asking if he wants a fight tonight. Being an eager young wrestler, he does. He thinks he's going to fight one of the members of the Heartbreak express, but instead they announce that he will be facing SoCal Val's new bodyguard "The Soul Assassin" Kory Chavis.

Chavis won. The Heartbreak Express beat Andrews down after the match until Sal Rinauro made the save. Sean Davis grabbed a mic and distracted Sal with chatter so that Sean Davis could sneak up behind him and attack him, leading to...

This was mostly a combination of annoying comedy and dog-and-pony show stuff. Rinauro won despite interference.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Fine. The Heartbreak Express attacked Sal Rinauro after the match but Tony Mamaluke and Roderick Strong came out to make the save. Roddy recruited Sal to team with them later tonight against DP Associates, and sounded shockingly confident on the mic for 2005 Roderick Strong. Sean Waltman came out and said that he wanted to team with them as well. Then DP Associates came out and attacked them all. Everyone else brawled away, leaving just Waltman and Shane Hagadorn in the ring, so we got...

SEAN WALTMAN vs. SHANE HAGADORN (w/Dave Prazak) - 3/10

This was short, but good for the time it got, and perfect for what it was. For those wondering, X-Pac did not job to the ROH Wrestling Academy student. I greatly enjoyed Prazak's post-match scolding of Hagadorn, telling him that this loss meant that he would not be on their Survivor Series team later tonight, as if anyone thought that a stable with Austin Aries, Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Adam Peace, and Jimmy Rave available to them would choose to sit one of them in favor of Shane f*cking Hagadorn.

JERRELLE CLARK vs. STEVE MADISON - 5.75/10

Clark won clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Stop me if this sounds familiar. There was a post-match attack (this time by Madison's usual tag team partner Erick Stevens). Then Roderick Strong and Tony Mamaluke made the save and asked Jerrelle if he wanted to be on their team in the main event. Obviously all of these segments serve to create reason for these guys to want to team with Roddy and Mamaluke as well as putting the babyfaces at a disadvantage because they have been attacked and weakened, but it feels a little too repetitive. It probably would have been better to at least not do it to set up the Rinauro vs. Davis match, as the situation Sal ran into there had no connection to the main event.

Everything they did here made sense and things built well, but the match never really felt epic or overly-exciting the way a match that goes fifty minutes should. If you're going to put on a show that is designed to rely completely on one specific match to sell it, you've got to make sure that match delivers something worth seeing, and this one didn't.

Final Thoughts
Despite the big "Survivor Series" match they were going for to distinguish it, this felt like your run of the mill FIP show from this era, with a bunch of slow, short matches on the undercard that don't really amount to much, and then a main event that while very good, doesn't feel worth the time investment of the rest of the show. Skip this one, unless you're some sort of obsessive fan of Sean Waltman's indy work.